“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God’s.” So reads Jesus’s response to a question about taxes. In the Canadian context, where land was taken by declaration rather than by negotiation, sale or even war (see the post below, “Magic Fairy Dust and Land,” about the creation of Crown land), we must ask, with whom should the church align in matters of taxation?
Magic Fairy Dust and Land History
The Court might as well speak of magic crystals being sprinkled on the land as a justification for the diminution of Aboriginal occupation and possession. Crown title simply does not make sense to Aboriginal people (and one suspects to many non-Aboriginal people).
Currently, churches are exempt from property taxes because they are seen as contributing to the common good. But increasingly, creative movements are popping up around the country to pay “rent” or a property tax equivalent to Indigenous nations upon whose lands churches, individuals live businesses, and even private in. Below are three examples of initiatives being enacted in Canada.
Spiritual Covenant
“A new solution to an old land problem.”1 So reads the opening to a 2022 document by Adrian Jacobs of the Cayuga Nation laying out the principles of a spiritual covenant commitment between churches and First Nations communities. In the document, Jacobs recounts the origins of this covenant renewal in a conversation with Rick Hill, a Tuscarora man and Haudenosaunee knowledge keeper in 2007 who imagined a spiritual covenant between churches and Six Nations, a new solution to an old land problem.
The Haldimand Tract is a boot-shaped tract of land that runs six miles on either side of the Grand River in Ontario, Six Nations Territory. Nine hundred fifty thousand acres were set aside by the Haldimand Proclamation in 1784. This proclamation granted land to the Mohawk for fighting on the side of the British in the Revolutionary War and provided land for Mohawk who had been displaced from their lands on the U.S. side of the border. Currently, however, only five percent of this area has been protected for Six Nations.
A lawsuit was initiated in 1995 asking not for a return of the lands but for an accounting from the government for the monies held in trust by the government of Canada regarding these lands. As of the writing of this article, the government has acknowledged “deficiencies in Canada’s fiduciary duties.” There has been no action to resolve the issue. This extremely long legal battle is typical for land claim processes, which are bound by separate rules, burdensome bureaucracy and opaque restrictions (like the fact that only six land claims can be in the court system at any one time).
Within the original 950,000 acres, there are more than seventy Lutheran and Mennonite churches. A handful of these churches have responded so far to Rick Hill’s idea of a spiritual covenant. Under our current system, churches are tax-exempt. Since churches do not pay property taxes, this covenant recommends they pay a small lease payment annually to Six Nations. This payment acknowledges Six Nations’ jurisdiction and authority over the lands. In addition, the Mennonites and Lutherans committed that if their buildings were to be closed down, those properties would be turned over to Six Nations. Six Nations, in turn, committed that the land would be kept in perpetuity for spiritual purposes.
Jacobs, who belongs to Six Nations but also served with the Mennonite Central Committee at the time of the original conversations around this covenant possibility, has been an essential bridge between the church and the leadership at Six Nations. More importantly, in becoming good neighbours and healing the relationship, there has also been a shift in alliance. In the words of Jacobs, “The church could lead the way in a courageous act of justice and be the conscience of Canada to pressure the government to follow suit for more fulsome reparation.”2
Property Tax re-alignment
In unceeded territories where there is no agreement about how to share the land, there is a small movement among churches to build into their budgets an amount that would eventually be equivalent to a property tax and to pay that amount to the Indigenous nations whose land they are on. In this way, if the property tax exemption for churches were ever lifted (and there have been rumblings to this effect), then it would position churches in solidarity with Indigenous nations where they could call out the fact that there is not currently a just agreement about sharing the land. This needs to be done in dialogue with those nations to whom these “taxes” would be paid because reparations must be relational to be effective.
Pay Your Rent
Various non-profits have sprung up to facilitate the idea of paying rent on Indigenous lands. The Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation website reads :
Settlers. Newcomers. Migrants. Arrivants, Displaced people. However you got here, you are living on the land of the original people and as such you have a responsibility to build relationship with the land and people of this place. Paying rent is a beginning.
The Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation3 is an Indigenous-led initiative that collects and redistributes funds to Indigenous-led groups and individuals in areas where the funds can make the greatest difference.
Reciprocity Trust4, on the other hand, is a non-Indigenous initiative that started on Vancouver Island and is slowly expanding through British Columbia. Their mission is:
Through Reciprocity Trusts, British Columbians can start saying thank you for over one hundred and fifty years of rent-free living by paying a little back each year. These annual payments will go directly to participating Indigenous Nations, who have control over where they accept payments from and what priorities they go towards.
Where else could we start initiatives that move from lip service to action?
Next week marks the end of this series, where I will evaluate each of these eight models based on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the framework non-Indigenous peoples, and churches in particular, have been asked to use as a framework5 for reconciliation. Which of these models do you think will hold up the best? Is there a step you could take toward action personally or with your community?
Spiritual Covenant document 2022 to see more: https://mcc.org/resources/spiritual-covenant-churches-and-first-nations
Spiritual Covenant document page 1
For more about Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation and their Pay Your Rent initiative, go here: https://payyourrent.ca/
For more about Reciprocity Trust, go here: https://reciprocitytrusts.ca
Call to Action #49 asked churches, faith-based institutions, and social justice groups to use the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a framework for reconciliation.